In this piece, we will look at the best strong buy AI stocks to invest in.
With 2025 nearing its end, another year has passed with AI dominating the markets. As an illustration, consider the year-to-date performance of two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that also list AI stocks. The Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ) has gained 28.9% year-to-date as of market close on November 28th, while the Roundhill Generative AI & Technology ETF (CHAT) is up by 47.2%. Comparing these with the NASDAQ 100 and the S&P 500’s year-to-date gains of 21.3% and 16.7%, it’s clear that AI stocks have continued to attract money.
When we talk about AI, while most attention is typically focused on chatbots developed by firms such as OpenAI, the term also applies to technologies used in the business world. These technologies include machine learning and agentic AI, with the former an indispensable part of SpaceX’s ability to land its Falcon 9 rockets. Machine learning algorithms rely heavily on what is called convex optimization, and according to Lars Blackmore, currently the Sr. Principal Mars Landing Engineer for SpaceX, the firm relies on generating “customized flight code, which enables very high-speed onboard convex optimization” to land the Falcon 9.
On the investing side of AI, the market is dominated primarily by big technology players. In the hardware space, it’s primarily NVIDIA that has benefited, while others, such as AMD, have also seen interest. In the software space, it’s mega caps Amazon, Google, and Microsoft whose enterprise software and consumer-focused platforms have garnered interest.
However, while AI stocks have benefited, worries about the costs of development have surfaced at the tail end of the year. For instance, on Bloomberg’s Here’s Why podcast, Bloomberg Technology Europe’s Tom Mackenzie discussed famed short seller Michael Burry’s decision to go against the AI market. Mackenzie explained that Burry’s “concern does focus on depreciation of some of these assets.”
The assets are chips such as NVIDIA’s GPUs, explained Mackenzie, as he added that the “concern is as you get newer versions of these chips, the older ones get less valuable.” Additionally, other AI skeptics were pointing out that “there are comparisons, they say, with what happened in the late 1990s. 1999, early 2000, the dotcom bubble.” The critics comment that during the dotcom bubble “it was the telecom equipment makers, that, leading up to all of the online expectations around how our digital economy was going to change, spent huge amounts of money on building the infrastructure to power the dotcom era and ended up losing a lot money because the gains didn’t come as quickly, the technology didn’t evolve as rapidly.” Mackenzie concluded by adding that while today’s mega caps, such as Amazon and Google, did emerge during this era, a lot of capital was burned as well.
Another branch of AI is Physical AI, which involves machines using AI to interact with the world around them. When asked about what her firm saw in its key Physical AI investments, Inspired Capital founder and Managing Partner, Alexa von Tobel, shared in a Bloomberg Television interview that one such firm, BrightAI’s CEO invented a sticker “that can go on anything from a utility pole to a water pipeline” to send “an observability layer back to whichever company has bought these sticks” to proactively inform the firm about potential hazards before they occur.
Source:Pixabay
Our Methodology
For our list of 10 Best Strong Buy AI Stocks to Invest In, we used the Finviz screener and Tipranks to make a list of strong buy technology stocks (market cap greater than $300 million) with significant exposure to AI and selected the top 100 with consensus Strong Buy ratings. These stocks were ranked by the number of hedge fund holders as of Q3 2025, and the top stocks were chosen. The hedge fund data was sourced from Insider Monkey’s database.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 427.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 264 percentage points (see more details here).
10. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 62
Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) is a technology company that provides contract manufacturing and other services. It factors into the AI ecosystem by providing infrastructure and other solutions that enable data center buildouts.
Investment bank Barclays kept an Overweight rating on Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s shares on November 14th and increased the share price target to $359 from $357, The Fly reported. The share price target boost came after Citi upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold and kept its share price target at $375. Citi’s coverage came as the bank remarked that it expected hyperscaler capital expenditure to grow by more than 40% in 2026 after growing by 75% in 2025.
The upgrades came soon after Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) had reported its third-quarter earnings on October 27th. The results saw the firm’s $3.19 billion in revenue and $1.58 in adjusted EPS beat analyst estimates of $3.04 billion and $1.49. Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s shares gained as much as 10% after the results were announced, and management attributed the performance to a strong demand environment that also let the firm increase its full-year revenue guide to $12.2 billion from an earlier $11.55 billion.
During Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS)’s third-quarter earnings call, management discussed its insight into the strong demand environment after a question from BNP Paribas’ Karl Ackerman:
“With regard to visibility to forecast and customer demand, we currently have about 12 to 15 months of real solid forecast inputs and demand inputs from our customers, largely around their 2026 budgeting and spend commit processes. But in many cases, we have visibility beyond that. In some cases, for specific customers, specific programs. There’s a certain amount of ASICs, for example, that they may have committed to, and it gives us some assurance as to the longevity and the size of the overall program. So we do get extended visibility through being similar to that.”
9. HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 63
HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS) is a software company that provides customer relationship management products and services. The firm’s Smart CRM platform enables customers to consolidate their data, teams, and tech stacks under a single platform.
On November 6th, Evercore ISI maintained an In Line rating for HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s shares and reduced the price target to $500 from $650. The hefty target cut came after the firm’s third-quarter earnings report, which disappointed Evercore when it came to the fourth quarter guidance. However, Evercore noted that HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s net new annual recurring revenue was growing faster than its revenue, and the firm was also expected to improve its net revenue retention in the current quarter. However, the research firm cautioned that the timeline for HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s revenue reacceleration was cloudy.
HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s fourth quarter revenue guidance was in-line with estimates, while its $809.5 million revenue beat analyst estimates. The results were driven by several factors, including a 21% subscription revenue growth and 10,900 new customer additions.
During the third-quarter earnings call, RBC’s Rishi Jaluria asked HubSpot, Inc. (NYSE:HUBS)’s management how they were gauging success with their AI products. In response, CEO Yamini Rangan commented:
“Rishi, that’s a great question. And I think I’ll kind of start with our strategy, the momentum and then how we are driving customer adoption because that is the right question to be digging into. If you step back, our strategy for AI has been consistent and clear, which is we want to embed AI into all of our hubs and platforms. We want to build agents that deliver work for our customers, and we want to deliver breeze, assistant and connectors that convert data into insights. And the strategy has just been consistent across the board. So when we look at momentum as well as traction in terms of the strategy, we look at all factors there. So the first thing is, is the embedded strategy working? And the answer for us is very clear because embedded features are being used across Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub.
They are improving the outcomes for our customers, things like conversion rate that I mentioned before, win rate, an improvement in 10% win rate in sales. I mean, previously before AI, I don’t think that types of outcome would have been possible with Sales Hub. I think that’s a huge improvement for our customers.”
8. Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65
Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) is a key stock in the AI ecosystem. It operates in the capacity side of the equation, which includes GPU clusters and cloud platforms. The firm completed its secondary offering in September.
With Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) closed at $94.87, Citizens Financial set a $175 price target for the firm on November 19th. The bank also set a Market Outperform rating on the shares and outlined that the rating was based on Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS)’s deals with Microsoft and Meta. The Microsoft deal is valued at $17.4 billion and is spread out over a five-year term. Its announcement sent the shares 47% higher in September. Citizens added that, along with the Meta deal, the engagements allow Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) to become a solid player in the AI ecosystem. Crucially, for Citizens, the two tech giants’ decision to work with the firm meant that Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS)’s previous ties to the Russian firm Yandex were not concerning when it came to security and protecting sensitive assets.
As for the hedge funds, 65 funds had disclosed holding Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS) in their third quarter 13F filings. Jericho Capital Asset Management‘s position was notable as it marked a 56% jump.
During Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ:NBIS)’s third-quarter earnings call, after DA Davidson’s Alex Platt asked management why Meta chose the firm, CEO Arkady Volozh replied:
“Well, again, as we’re happy to announce today, this new deal with Meta is approximately $3 billion. As I said, the size of the deal was limited only by the capacity that we had available, and if we had more capacity, we could have signed a bigger deal, probably. After we announced Microsoft in September, we said that we would have more deals of this kind, more large deals. And actually, we’re delivering on that promise, and we’re optimistic as these deals will arise more and more. However, these mega deals are important, but it’s important to stress that we will remain focused on developing our own AI cloud, which currently serves not only these big deals but AI startups and enterprises. Ultimately, we believe that these large contracts provide us with great sourcing of financing for us to continue building our core AI cloud business.”
7. Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 71
Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) is a technology company that provides software development services by allowing users to develop their websites without relying on coding. The firm operates in the AI software industry by allowing customers to use AI to develop their websites.
Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX)’s third-quarter earnings report on November 19th led to a flurry of analyst action for the firm. One such report came from Barclays as it increased the firm’s share price target to $236 from $184. The bank cited the earnings report to comment that Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) was experiencing healthy growth in business and partner products and added that the firm’s free cash flow margin was also nearing 30%. Barclays kept its Overweight rating on the shares and added that Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) also enjoyed diversification through having three different businesses to grow.
Talking about hedge funds, 71 hedge funds disclosed holding Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX) in their third-quarter 13F filings. A notable filing came from Rima Senvest Management as its position jumped by 22%.
During Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX)’s third quarter earnings call, Wix.com Ltd. (NASDAQ:WIX)’s management discussed the firm’s Base 44 acquisition and pointed out that it was helping with guidance:
“I think that it’s fair to say that most of the increase in guidance is coming from the strength that we see with the Base 44 business. I think that it’s very much kind of different from what we’ve seen only last earnings. I remember it has been like five months from the minute that we’ve bought this business. The first earning that we had like a few months ago, we’ve seen the demand, but in the last few months, it’s even much, much bigger than what we anticipated at the very beginning. This is why we’ve decided to invest more. And I do believe that Base 44 will turn out to be a significant growth driver for Wix.com Ltd. With regard to the margin headwind, yes, I believe that it will continue and let me even say differently, I hope that it will continue because it means that we are going to see a much higher demand.
I think that in this case, it’s really the same as what we’ve seen, you know, in the past from Wix.com Ltd. You know, every time that we’ve launched a new product, it was actually the case the very beginning with the ADI, even when we started the partners business. We saw such a huge demand and obviously we are investing in to capture it. So, yes, I mean, in the short term, we are going to see some more pressure on margin. I’m not sure where the margin expansion will start again. It is going to be 2026 or late 2026. It really depends on the demands that we are going to see for this business.”
6. Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 72
Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm that enables software firms to monitor their cloud infrastructure and amalgamate the monitoring of different microservices under a single platform. The firm has a presence in the AI industry through its machine learning powered solutions for monitoring and its AI engine, Watchdog.
The start of November was a busy month for Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) as it came to analyst coverage. After the firm’s third-quarter earnings report, analysts from RBC, Cantor Fitzgerald, and TD Cowen raised their share price targets for the firm. Among these, RBC Capital kept its Outperform rating for Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)’s shares and increased the price target to $216 from $182. The research firm outlined that Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)’s latest quarter had demonstrated non-AI growth and added that OpenAI renewing its contract with the firm also removed some of the uncertainty.
Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)’s shares have experienced quite a bit of turmoil over the past month. They soared by 23% after the firm reported $885.7 million in third-quarter revenue and $0.55 in adjusted earnings to beat analyst estimates for both metrics. Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) also benefited from its midpoint $914 million in fourth quarter earnings guidance that beat estimates of $887 million.
On the hedge fund front, 72 hedge funds covered by Insider Monkey’s database had disclosed holding Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) in their third quarter 13F filings. One notable holding was Renaissance Technologies, whose position marked an 89% increase over the number of shares held in the previous quarter.
During the Q3 earnings call, when asked by Morgan Stanley’s Sanjit Singh about enterprise trends in the non-AI market, Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG)’s CEO, Olivier Pomel, replied:
“Yes. I’d say there’s 3 parts to it. One part is the demand environment is not — is positive in general. I don’t know that we see massive acceleration of cloud migration, but at least the environment is not pushing the other way. We know which happens from time to time. So that’s point number one. Point number two is we’ve been growing sales capacity quite a bit, and we’ve created new go-to-market motions to go after the kind of customers who were not getting before. Like we’ve done quite a bit of investment over the past couple of years and we see that starting to pay off. As I said also, we feel good about Q4 in terms of pipeline on the sales side. So it’s too early to tell yet. We still have to close those deals, but we feel good about the scaling of our go-to-market.”
5. Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 92
Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET) is quite important when it comes to the AI ecosystem. The firm makes and sells switches and networking equipment that are essential for the functioning of AI data centers.
One recent strong analyst call for Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s shares came on November 5th when Barclays upgraded the firm’s share price target to $183 from $179 and kept an Overweight rating. The share price target bump came after the firm’s third-quarter earnings report. While Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s shares tumbled by 8% after the earnings, Barclays outlined that it expects the firm to benefit from AI and cloud computing demand. Even though Barclays has been Overweight on the firm for a while, it cut the target to $119 in May before hiking it to $151 in August and then to $179 in September. In 2022, as it set Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET) to Overweight, Barclays pointed out that growth in the campus switching and data center switching markets could allow the firm to achieve mid-teens growth for a couple of years.
Looking at hedge funds, 92 funds covered by Insider Monkey’s database had disclosed holding Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET) in their third-quarter portfolios. Arrowstreet Capital‘s position was noteworthy as it marked an 83% growth over the second quarter.
During the third quarter earnings call, when UBS’ David Vogt asked Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s management about the room for growth in the non-AI and campus business, here’s what CEO Jaysrhee Ullal had to say:
“And so yelling isn’t the tone I’d like to attribute it to, excitement maybe, your enthusiasm is the one I’d like you to think about, which is clearly, AI and campus is going to grow and do great guns for us as it should because they are 2 very large TAMs. Whether it is Ken and Tyson driving the AI and cloud TAM or whether it’s Todd Nightingale driving the campus and these 2 are going to grow substantially in double digits, right? So to your point, it doesn’t leave the core business with a lot of opportunity. But that’s not to say it may be flattish, it may be grow. It’s to say that our customers are putting more attention there and that the existing business, which is already on very large numbers, will have lesser growth. We don’t yet know if it’s flattish or single digit or whether more will go to AI. We frankly can’t predict the mix this early in the game on 2026, but we think we’re in for a great ride in 2026.”
4. Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 96
Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) is a software company that provides a wide variety of finance-related services such as business management, payroll management, marketing automation, and customer relationship management.
When it comes to strong analyst ratings, November’s tail-end has been quite busy for Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU). On the 21st, analysts from Wells Fargo, RBC Capital, and BMO Capital all kept their Outperform and Overweight ratings on the shares. Among these, Wells is the only one with an Overweight rating. Its latest coverage saw the bank cut Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)’s share price target to $840 from $880 after the firm’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report. BMO kept its Outperform rating, but reduced the price target to $810 from $870. BMO noted that Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)’s QuickBooks Online software and Credit Karma platforms are benefiting from growth through entry into new markets and the upcoming tax season.
On the hedge fund front, 96 funds tracked by Insider Monkey had disclosed holding Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU) in their third quarter 13F filings. Among these, AQR Capital Management‘s position marked an 89% growth over the previous quarter’s figures.
During the third quarter earnings call, Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ:INTU)’s management responded to analyst queries about its QuickBooks Online pricing power, with CFO Sandeep Singh Aujla commenting:
“On the QBO side, we continue to see our innovation resonate with the customer and even after we did the price changes and the lineup innovation there last July, we saw that our customer attrition again came in below our expectations. So just highlighting how the pricing power we have as well as how well the innovation truly is resonating with our customers. And when we see some of this innovation, such as 45% of our customers telling us that they’re saving up to twelve hours a month, that’s a meaningful increase in the productivity of getting paid five days faster. A meaningful increase to the net working capital. So these I would highlight these as areas where we’re driving innovation.
And it’s resonating. Pricing contribution is relatively consistent throughout the four quarters. And the other thing I’ll point out on QBO is momentum we have as a point of the 40% revenue growth in IES. As well as in QBO Advanced that is a contributor to the accounting line on the online ecosystem. The second part of your question was around margin.”
3. Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 102
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is a data warehousing firm that plays a key role in the AI ecosystem. Its AI Data Cloud and Cortex AI enable customers to build and scale AI applications by relying on LLMs and other AI technologies, while its machine learning platform works with the machine learning AI subsegment.
On November 25th, CNBC’s Scott Wapner reported that Loop Capital had increased Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)’s share price target to $280 from $270. The firm cited improving channel checks as the reason behind its upgrade. In response, Stephanie Link, Hightower Advisors’ chief investment strategist, Stephanie Lick, commented that the firm had preannounced its quarter on October 27th and “whispers” suggested that Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) might deliver 11% in operating margins and added that a lot of good news appeared to be priced in.
Looking at the hedge fund filings for the third quarter, 102 funds part of Insider Monkey’s database had disclosed holding Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) in their 13F filings. A notable 100% jump came from Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)’s CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy explained the firm’s business model and its Cortex AI platform in an interview with Bloomberg on November 5th. He outlined that Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW) is “the data layer that sits above cloud services providers, the AWS, Azure, and GCP. We are very much a data centric platform. We are about making it really easy to ingest clean and be able to run analytics on top of the data.” Ramaswamy added that Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW)’s Snowflake Intelligence AI platform allows users to bring the power of the data directly to the end user.
2. ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 104
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) is a software company that allows businesses to streamline their workflows. It also plays a key role in the enterprise AI segment through its ServiceNow AI service that enables users to combine AI data and AI workflows under a single roof.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) has gradually been expanding its partnership with software giant Microsoft in 2025. The latest development on this front came on November 18th when the firm announced that its AI Control Tower and Build Agent would work with Microsoft’s AI Foundry, Copilot Studio, and GitHub. The announcement is a major move forward for ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) as it allows the firm’s business customers to maintain their automation and workflow management while using AI to access Microsoft’s services should they require to do so.
“By seamlessly connecting agentic orchestration and governance across ServiceNow and Microsoft, we’re giving organizations the power to manage and monitor intelligent agents that deliver real work and real impact — safely and at scale. This is how we move from isolated AI experiences to enterprise-wide automation, delivering trust, control, and ROI,’ said ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)’s executive vice president and general manager, AI Platform, Jon Sigler.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW)’s deal with Microsoft enables it to gain deeper traction in the enterprise workflow AI market. This penetration was not left unnoticed by Columbia Threadneedle Investments, as it commented in its third quarter investor letter:
“ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) underperformed during the quarter after the company provided guidance that investors viewed as cautious, and caused concern that renewal deals from large clients were being pushed out. The company’s AI innovations are gaining traction and support the company’s strategic positioning as a next-gen workflow and AI orchestration platform.”
1. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 234
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the firm that is at the center of the AI wave that’s taken Wall Street by storm. This is because the firm’s GPUs are the latest and most advanced products for computing AI workloads. Consequently, it is the most valuable company in the world.
After NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) reported its fiscal third quarter earnings on November 19th, analysts came into action and started issuing their reports. One such report came from Keybanc. It raised NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s share price target to $275 from $250 and kept an Overweight rating on the stock. At the heart of Keybanc’s upgrade was NVIDIA’s pipeline for its Blackwell and Rubin AI GPUs. The Blackwell GPUs are the latest products currently shipping in the market, while the Rubin is NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s next-generation platform announced earlier this year. Keybanc believes that the firm’s $500 billion revenue pipeline for these products in 2026 and 2027 merited a price target increase.
Speaking of hedge funds, 234 had disclosed holding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in their 13F filings tracked by Insider Monkey. A notable stake was of Millennium Management as it indicated a 127% increase.
In an appearance on Schwab Network on November 27th, Wedbush’s Dan Ives discussed NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) with Nicole Petallides of The Watch List. He outlined that “demand to supply is 12 to 1 for NVIDIA’s chips. Meta can’t get enough of these NVIDIA chips, there’s 30-40% they can maybe get.” He added that “at the end of the day, it’s NVIDIA world, everyone else is paying rent when it comes to the AI revolution.”
While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. Insider Monkey focuses on uncovering the best investment ideas of hedge funds and insiders. Please subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter to get the latest investment ideas from hedge funds’ investor letters by entering your email address below.
